Dakini Teachings. Padmasambhava Guru Rinpoche
against your disturbing emotions.
Whatever root of virtue you engage in, fuel it with bodhicitta and never be separate from the six paramitas.
Whatever you then do, always have the intention to increase virtue and decrease misdeeds.
Whatever physical actions you engage in, make them virtuous. Whatever words you utter, make them virtuous. Whatever thoughts you entertain, make them virtuous.
In short, exert yourself in nothing but wholesome and virtuous actions of body, speech, and mind. Shun even the tiniest nonvirtue or misdeed.
If you do not keep the protection of the armor of mindfulness and conscientiousness, the weapons of disturbing emotions will cut the aorta for attaining the higher realms and liberation. During the four kinds of daily activities, it is therefore essential to guard yourself with the armor of mindfulness and conscientiousness.
Master Padma said: First of all, have confidence in the cause and effect of your actions.
Keep in mind that before long you will definitely die. This life lasts only for a short while so do not strive for the things of this life.
Keep in mind the future is lasting and strive for the benefit of the future.
Make ready and certain now, for the benefit of future lives, that you do not slip onto a downward track.
Do not be conceited about anything. If you retain the pride of thinking that you are learned, great, or noble, you will not acquire any good qualities. So cast away conceit and train yourself in Dharma practice without wavering for even a single moment.
Apply the remedies against misdeeds. If even the slightest disturbing emotion or unvirtuous deed arises in your being, think of it as an unbearable suffering, the size of Mount Sumeru.
Actions engaged in with doubt will not accomplish anything, so do not harbor the slightest doubt.
As long as you have not abandoned ego-clinging, then misdeeds, no matter how small, will still yield results. So it is essential to shun misdeeds.
Master Padma said: Having taken the vows of the greater or lesser vehicles,2 do not abandon them even at the cost of your life. If you do damage them, it is most important to immediately make confession and retake your vows.
Some people, when their vows are damaged, become disheartened and commit nothing but acts of further transgression. But like cleansing oneself by washing and sprinkling fragrant water after slipping in the dirt, purify your obscurations and acts of downfall and violation so that broken vows never accumulate.
Do not keep company with or befriend a person who has degenerated his discipline or samayas for even a single moment. If when wearing white robes you go to an oily swamp, the black stuff will surely discolor the white. Similarly, even though your own samayas are pure you will surely still be defiled by the broken samayas of others. If your own samayas are not pure, it is like black not being tainted by black. So be very careful.
It is there essential not to associate with evil people or with bad company who have lost their vows.
In any case, one should take care not to be ashamed of oneself.
Master Padma said: Whatever actions you engage in, do not do anything nondharmic that fails to become the accumulation of merit and wisdom.
Do not desire anything other than omniscient buddhahood and benefiting sentient beings.
Do not be attached to anything. Attachment itself is the root of bondage.
Do not criticize other teachings and do not disparage people. All the teachings are ultimately indivisible, like the taste of salt.
Do not criticize any of the higher or lower vehicles. They are identical in being the path to be journeyed, just like the steps on a staircase.
You cannot know another person unless you can perceive with superknowledge. So do not criticize others.
In general, all sentient beings are by their very nature spontaneously perfect buddhas. They possess the essence of enlightenment. Do not examine other people’s faults or delusions.
Do not examine the limitations of others. Examine how you can change your own.
Do not examine the shortcomings of others but examine your own shortcomings.
The greatest of evils is to hold religious prejudice and to criticize other people without knowing their mind. So give up prejudice as if it were poison.
Master Padma said: Even though you have taken so many rebirths since beginningless time, you have not accomplished the welfare of yourself and others. Now, in this body, you should accomplish the benefit of self and others.
Even though you have incarnated so many times in the past, you had no opportunity to train in the Dharma but only plunged further into the dungeon of samsaric existence. Now exert yourself in training in the Mahayana teachings during this brief time while you have met the Dharma.
Keep company with those who increase virtue. Give up friends who increase misdeeds.
Do not restlessly hanker after things like a dog or a hungry ghost, but rest loosely by means of applying the remedies. If you tire yourself with restless hankering, you will agitate your own mind with evil deeds, and through that the minds of others. Thus you will accumulate misdeeds.
If you consider even slight discomfort to be suffering, it will grow to be more painful. You will find no happiness unless you let your mind rest loosely.
Do not pursue former suffering. Everything, whether good or bad, is past and gone. Do not anticipate future suffering.
No matter what suffering may befall you now, do not give in to it, but develop courage again and again.
In any case, if you do not apply the remedies to your mind, suffering will never cease.
Relax your mind in its natural state without modifying or spoiling it and turn it gently to what is virtuous.
Master Padma said: When you persevere in Dharma practice, it is essential to always train in turning any virtuous root of action, through body, speech, or mind, to be for the benefit of others.
First, train gradually in this with the smallest deeds. From time to time, check to see whether or not you are tainted by the defilement of self-interest. You will not be successful if you retain even the tiniest taint of selfishness. Make sure not to be tainted by the defilement of self-interest.
The difference between the greater and lesser vehicles is the arousing of bodhicitta. The difference is created not by the view but by compassion. Therefore keeping the view of the natural state, train yourself in great compassion.
For the benefit of self and others, abandon the suffering of samsara forever.
Train repeatedly in feeling renunciation for samsara.
Train in taking upon yourself the burden of the suffering of others.
First train in regarding all sentient beings as being like yourself. Train in feeling that the suffering of others is your own suffering. Then train in cherishing sentient beings as being more important than yourself.
Train in the great compassion that involuntarily acts for the welfare of others.
The word Mahayana implies simply to cherish others as being superior to oneself. Mahayana never implies the pursuit of happiness solely for oneself with no thought for the suffering of others, regarding oneself as more important.
Master Padma said: If you train your mind in love, compassion, and bodhicitta, you will not take rebirth in the three lower realms. Moreover, from this very moment you will never fall back. This alone is my oral instruction.
Wherever you go, keep bodhicitta in mind, never departing from its company.
Whatever action you engage in, train in doing it for the benefit of sentient beings. Train in regarding others as more important than yourself. You will attain numerous qualities as a result of this